Al Gore: Obama needs to get ‘serious’ on climate

Add Al Gore to the chorus of environmentalists who say it’s time for President Barack Obama to get serious about climate change.

The former vice president used a Google+ plus video chat Tuesday to tell supporters that Obama needs to go beyond his “great words” on the topic, and to lament that the president has yet to assemble a team to spearhead his second-term climate agenda.

“I hope that he’ll get moving on to follow up on the wonderful pledges he made in his inaugural speech earlier this year and then soon after in his State of the Union,” Gore said. “Great words. We need great actions now.”

Part of the problem, the former veep said, is Obama’s climate team — or the lack thereof.

“He does not yet have a team in the White House to help him implement solutions to the climate crisis. He hasn’t staffed up for it,” Gore said, adding, “He’s got one person who hasn’t been given that much authority.”

“You know, really, if he’s serious about it he needs to get a team in place and he needs to present a plan, he needs to use the bully pulpit, he needs to be a vigorous advocate,” Gore said.

Gore did not specify whether the “one person” he was referring to was Heather Zichal, the White House’s top adviser on energy and climate change. But Zichal offered a perhaps unintentional rejoinder Tuesday afternoon, telling an audience in the Capitol Visitor Center that more details on the president’s climate approach are coming.

“In the coming weeks and months, you can expect to hear more from the president on this issue, as well as on the agenda,” Zichal said in a speech at an environmental leadership forum hosted by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse. But she offered few substantial hints, noting — as people following the issue already know well — that because Congress hasn’t passed any comprehensive climate plan, “our focus moving forward will be on executive actions,” including EPA regulations.

“We will continue to build on the progress using the tools of the Clean Air Act to advance a broader climate agenda,” she said. She also said a deal Obama reached this weekend with Chinese President Xi Jinping on reducing emissions of hydrofluorocarbons is the start of a “long and robust” global climate agenda.

Zichal was already in the White House in 2011 when she became Obama’s top environment adviser, replacing longtime environmental policymaker and former Gore protege Carol Browner. She did not take questions from reporters about Gore’s remarks.

Gore said Obama should start by blocking Keystone, which would carry crude oil from Alberta’s oil sands to Texas.

“Well, the hell with that,” Gore said of the oil sands petroleum. “It’s the dirtiest form of fuel on the planet — except for its byproduct, petroleum coke, or petcoke, that’s piling up on the Detroit River right now, part of it. … This is an atrocity, these tar sands.”

During an earlier speech Tuesday at Whitehouse’s environmental event, Gore made nary a mention of Obama while praising the Rhode Island Democrat as “the leading United States Senate advocate for solving the climate crisis.”

Whitehouse has been giving weekly speeches on the Senate floor on climate change, which he has dubbed his “Time to Wake Up” speeches.

“I don’t come to Washington much anymore. I’m a recovering politician,” said Gore, who was in Silicon Valley on Monday and is traveling to Turkey this weekend. “But when Sheldon called me and asked me if I would do this event, I readily agreed and moved my schedule around to do it because I personally am deeply grateful for the leadership he’s been showing.”

Gore also told the audience that the world is on “the cusp of a fantastic revolution” in wind, solar and other green energy.

“But there is still ferocious resistance” from “legacy industries that have built up wealth and power in a previous age,” he added. He said those industries are using their power to slow the growth of green energy, in the same way tobacco companies hired actors to play doctors when the link between cigarettes and lung cancer became a problem for them.

“It’s the same thing all over again,” Gore said. “But the tide is turning. The one crucial element that we need to really focus on is leadership.”

Whitehouse himself appeared more hopeful about Obama’s agenda. “I think that things are starting to move, particularly on climate and carbon in Washington,” said the senator, who met with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough last week to talk about the administration’s environmental strategy.

Whitehouse said no serious actions will emerge until after the Senate confirms Gina McCarthy’s nomination as EPA administrator, which is being held up by Republican objections. But McCarthy, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Interior Secretary Sally Jewell “make a very strong team,” the senator said.